Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Review: Next Big Leap In Budget Laptops

|

Most students and working professionals, who are in the early phase of their career look for cheaper laptops. There is no shortage of budget laptops in the Indian market. However, most of them look the same and offer a similar set of specifications. This makes it very difficult for users to choose, and most go for the one that they could get their hands on.

 

Rating:
4.5/5

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Review: Next Big Leap In Budget Laptops

Asus has been producing some unique laptops, and it has now launched the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED. Retailing for Rs. 46,990, it is currently the most affordable laptop in the country with a 1080p OLED display. I have been testing this laptop for a while, and here is the full review of the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED.

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Specifications

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Specifications

  • CPU: Intel Core i3-1115G4
  • Display: 15.6-inch OLED 1920 x 1080 60Hz
  • GPU: Intel UHD Graphics
  • Memory: 8GB DDR4
  • Storage: 256GB PCIe SSD
  • Battery: 42WHr
  • OS: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Upgradable to Windows 11)
Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Design

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Design

In terms of looks and feel, the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED looks like a typical Vivobook with a slim profile, and the machine is exceptionally light for a 15-inch laptop, weighing at 1.8KG. It might not be the lightest laptop in the market, but it is definitely one of the lightest laptops in its segment.

Even in terms of I/O, the laptop offers a full-sized HDMI port, USB Type-C port, microSD card slot, a couple of USB-A ports, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. With this laptop, you can enjoy a dongle-free life. Considering the size of this machine, I would have loved to see a full-sized SD card slot rather than a microSD card slot.

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Design
 

In my experience, most people who want a budget laptop look for a large screen display (15-inch), and this machine does offer the same. In terms of looks and feel, the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED is definitely on par with the competition and will definitely exceed your expectation.

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Display: Best Display On Budget

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Display: Best Display On Budget

One of the major pain points of a budget laptop would be the display. These laptops usually come with a large screen but most use a cheap IPS LCD panel with lower brightness. As the name suggests, the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED comes with a 15.6-inch OLED display with 1080p resolution, a feature missing from budget laptops until now.

Asus is not using a cheap OLED panel either, as the screen can reach up to 600 nits of peak brightness, and the device is also DisplayHDR 600 certified. Additionally, the screen also offers other parameters like 100 percent DIC-P3 color coverage, 0.2ms response time, and up to 1.07 billion colors.

Given the color accuracy, the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED is a great laptop for both personal and professional usage. You can even use it for editing photos and videos. If you have a workload that involves handling high-resolution photos and videos, then do consider the Core i5/i7 version of the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED and not the base variant.

If you watch movies or any sort of digital content on a laptop, you will be impressed by the display of the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED. Yes, it does not have a higher refresh rate. However, that should only matter if you are planning to buy a laptop for competitive/fps gaming, and this laptop is not meant for that sort of workflow.

Again, to reiterate, the unique selling point of the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED is the display. Asus is offering an OLED panel on a budget laptop, which does make it a bit more expensive than a similarly loaded machine. However, if you are a movie buff, then this is the budget laptop you should get.

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Keyboard And Trackpad

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Keyboard And Trackpad

The Asus Vivobook K15 OLED packs a good keyboard with a dedicated num pad. This is not just an ordinary keyboard, as it supports backlit lighting. Again, this is something that we generally don't see on laptops that are priced under Rs. 50,000. Another addition is that the trackpad also has a built-in fingerprint sensor, which is fitted keeping security in mind.

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Keyboard And Trackpad

As per the trackpad, I had some issues. I felt that the surface of the trackpad was not that smooth, and I could feel it when I was sliding over my finger. I don't know if this issue is limited to the unit that I received or Asus is just using a cheap quality trackpad on the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED. Again, you should be able to adjust or even overcome by using an external mouse.

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Web Camera And Sound

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Web Camera And Sound

The Asus Vivobook K15 OLED has a 720p web camera, which works as expected. There is nothing special about the built-in web camera on this machine, as this should be more than enough for attending normal video calls from your office or even to attend online classes.

As per the sound, the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED has a Harmon Kardon certified stereo speaker setup, which gets adequately loud. I also liked the audio output via Bluetooth and via the headphone jack on this machine, and the overall audio experience is very satisfactory.

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Performance

Asus Vivobook K15 OLED Performance

The top trim of the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED offers up to 11th Gen Intel Core i7 processor with a dedicated NVIDIA GPU. However, the base model which I have tested is powered by the Intel Core i3-1115G4 CPU which comes with the Intel UHD graphics card.

Additionally, the laptop offered 8GB DDR4 RAM and 256GB PCIe Gen3 based SSD, it also comes with a kit to install a secondary storage device in the retail package. The Intel Core i3-1115G4 is a dual-core four-thread CPU with a peak clock speed of 4.1GHz and a base clock speed of 1.7GHz.

This 11th Gen Intel CPU is meant for managing normal day-to-day tasks like browsing the web, editing a text document, attending online classes, and watching videos. Even for my usage, the base model of the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED offers plenty of performance.

If we look at the benchmark numbers, on Geekbench 5, the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED posted 1140 points on single-core CPU performance and 2722 points on multi-core CPU performance. Similarly, on CPU-Z, the laptop posted 450.2 and 1372.6 points on single-thread and multi-thread CPU tests.

These numbers indicate that the single-core performance of the Intel Core i3-1115G4 is as good as a laptop with a Core i5 processor. However, due to the limited number of cores, the multi-core performance isn't that impressive. To translate these numbers to the real world, even the base model of the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED can easily handle normal day-to-day tasks without any issue.

Verdict: Best Budget Laptop Of 2021

Verdict: Best Budget Laptop Of 2021

For an everyday audience, a laptop should boot quickly, which the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED does as it has SSD storage. Similarly, 8GB RAM is also more than enough to handle day-to-day tasks. And the laptop will also get a free update to Windows 11 OS in just a few days.

As per the battery life, the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED should be able to last for six to seven hours on a single charge, and you can easily binge two full-length movies on a single charge and the laptop should also last all day for students and working professionals.

Asus is making a lot of emphasis on the fact that the Asus Vivobook K15 OLED has an OLED display and even we believe that the OLED display is the main factor on why you should consider this machine over the other budget laptops.

Best Mobiles in India

Read More About: asus laptops news reviews

Best Phones

Get Instant News Updates
Enable
x
Notification Settings X
Time Settings
Done
Clear Notification X
Do you want to clear all the notifications from your inbox?
Yes No
Settings X
X